The many hands of an island united in hope
On Aug. 8, 2023, the world watched as wildfires fanned by hurricane-force winds ravaged the island of Maui, charring Upcountry and incinerating downtown Lahaina. Many lives were lost and hundreds more missing as the voracious blaze devoured homes, businesses and cultural sites by the thousands. In the hours, days and weeks that followed, accounts of heroism and self-sacrifice flooded the media.
While thinking of others first during a disaster may make for compelling global headlines, acts of selflessness — common on Maui — are rooted in a single word: Laulima.
Meaning “many hands working together,” laulima touched every corner of the island — Hana to Kahakuloa, Pauwela to Kanaloa, Kula to Kīhei, and Olowalu to Kapalua. Like a phoenix rising, wings spread in an embrace of hope, laulima stories continue still, bolstering our resolve, inspiring our humanity and consoling our grief.
LAULIMA WEST MAUI
The heroic efforts of Lahaina residents before, during and immediately following the incinerating firestorm were among the earliest stories of laulima in the face of tragedy.
“It’s hard to even talk about what happened,” Kekoa Lansford told Outside magazine about the day he loaded neighbors and strangers into the bed of his pickup truck to escape the white-hot inferno, dropping them in a safe zone before going back at least five more times. The parents of a childhood friend were among the last Lansford rescued before the flames grew too intense.
Ariel Ferrer, who ran a jet-ski rental business in Lahaina, was miles away at home when the US Coast Guard alerted all available vessel operators to assist with Lahaina Harbor rescues as hundreds fled to the sea for safety. His business in ashes, Ferrer was one of the first to pull people from the harbor as flames and smoke blanketed the water.
Boat captain Chrissy Lovitt was on an offshore skiff when the fire came for her town. Watching in horror as desperation drove people toward the ocean, she sprang into action. Joining forces with another vessel operator, she rescued two children before flames engulfed her 36-foot catamaran right before her eyes.
One of the first international news bytes featured anonymous “hero firefighters” delivering a severely burned dog to Maui Humane Society for urgent medical care. The photo of the black pup with scorched whiskers and burned paws became a rallying cry for animals impacted by the fires (see “Many Hands. Holoholona” page 39). As for Maui’s hero firefighters, they were Capt. Ikaika Blackburn, Tye Perdido, Kainalu Kealoha and newly minted MFD rookie Jordan Dunn out of Station 11 in Napali. Perdido rescued the dog in the Lahainaluna area, Dunn said. The firefighters kept it with them in their fire truck before handing it off to medics later that night.
In the days immediately following, the greater Maui ohana didn’t wait to act, filling in the emergency response puka (holes) where needed without request or reward. Boats, skiffs and recreational water vehicles helmed by private and commercial operators ferried desperately needed supplies donated from around the island — water, food, clothing, baby products, generators, propane — to beaches in Kahana and Kaanapali. A chain of volunteers waist-deep in water passed the provisions from boats to shore for disbursement.
In nearby Olowalu, Eddy and Sam Garcia turned their sustainable, off-the-grid farm into a westside shelter and donation drop-off site. Even as portions of their farmland burned, the couple pledged unaffected acreage for displaced families and individuals to safely camp, as necessary.
Surfing legend Archie Kalepa was working on the mainland when he learned of the fire ravaging his hometown. Returning as quickly as he could, Kalepa immediately cleared space in his spared Hawaiian Home Lands front yard for requested supplies, establishing one of several makeshift distribution centers in West Maui erected in advance of an organized response.
Keeamoku Kapu, steward of the Na Aikane o Maui Cultural and Research Center, held onto a sliver of hope that a few priceless artifacts — old maps, genealogy documents, books signed by Hawaiian kings — survived the flames. Allowed to return to the burned-out site of the former center, Kapu walked away clutching a single stone carving — the only item spared. An integral member of Lahaina’s close-knit Native Hawaiian ohana, Kapu channeled the pain of irreplaceable loss into action, working with Maui’s Emergency Management Agency to help run a West Maui distribution center.
It was a common thread woven into story after story: Those who lost the most were among the first to give. The Lahaina surf-shop owner who raffled off her one surviving board to help others rather than herself. Award-winning chefs donating their time and talents to Chef Hui — a consortium of volunteer chefs that prepared 50,000-plus meals for first responders, displaced survivors and others impacted by the wildfires — while their Front Street restaurants smoldered.
“We are witnessing a true testament to the power of unity and community action …” Papa Aina Chef Lee Anne Wong told Maui No Ka Oi Dining Editor Carla Tracy (see “Craving Maui” page 52 for more chef responses and restaurant updates).
Although Wong lost her home and livelihood, that didn’t stop the “Top Chef” All-Star from volunteering her considerable abilities to Chef Hui efforts to feed the hungry. Even local keiki did what they could to help, raising donations through bake sales and drink stands in West Maui neighborhoods untouched by flames.
Luxurious West Maui resorts that escaped damage morphed into relief centers offering supplies, shelter, medical attention and counseling. A FEMA trailer set up on the grounds of Sheraton Maui Resort & Spa provided general assistance as the resort initiated the Aloha for Sheraton Maui Ohana Fund. Farther west, The Ritz-Carlton Maui, Kapalua and Montage Kapalua Bay also established emergency assistance funds for affected employees and affiliates.
At Royal Lahaina Resort & Bungalows — a hearty stone’s throw from the fire’s epicenter — doors opened for displaced residents, long before the promise of repayment, as response organizers scrambled to arrange housing. Working with the Red Cross, Royal Lahaina ultimately provided more than 375 rooms that sheltered approximately 1,000 displaced residents. To ensure support is ongoing, parent company Highgate Hotels established the Love Maui assistance program.
LAULIMA CENTRAL MAUI
With multiple fires burning across the island, emergency personnel were already mobilizing when disjointed reports of a reignited Lahaina fire swept across Central Maui. As the reality of the devastation in West Maui took hold, emergency response officials set up evacuation centers at Maui High School and War Memorial Complex. King’s Cathedral, Grace Bible Church and The Church of Latter-day Saints Maui Lani provided shelter as well as the whole of the island prepared for what a week earlier had been unthinkable.
At War Memorial, where hundreds of displaced evacuees huddled, a volunteer approached a middle-aged man sitting alone, his head cradled in his hands. The noise, he said, was making him crazy. The volunteer promised to return with earplugs. Upon discovering there were none at the medical tent, she used her own money to purchase several boxes of foam earplugs: two pairs for her auditory-challenged friend and the rest donated to the shelter.
Throughout Central Maui, warehouses, conference rooms and home garages morphed into donation drop-off sites in a collective show of kuleana (responsibility). Businesses shifted priorities as recovery eclipsed revenue. While international disaster relief organizations were still enroute, Hi-Tech Surf Sports employees dispersed more than 20 truckloads of organically collected food, blankets and water. Locally owned Mauliola Pharmacy stepped in to provide shelter medical units with vital pharmaceutical support for an estimated 500 affected individuals. And BMW of Maui’s luxury fleet vehicles turned utilitarian, providing shuttle services and transporting three boatloads of supplies to Maalaea Harbor for delivery to West Maui.
Home to Maui Ocean Center, Maui Harbor Shops, and other visitor-oriented businesses and services, Maalaea Harbor transformed overnight from popular tourist destination to disaster-relief hub rivaling those of the biggest non-governmental units.
In a groundswell of self-organized support, volunteer groups formed through social media and word of mouth connected with boat operators to arrange transport of collected goods to West Maui. Supply-laden pickup trucks chugged in and out of the Harbor Shops parking lot with minimal direction as rag-tag crews — some assembled as early as that morning — sorted and loaded donations onto partnering vessels.
What some might have viewed as outlaw altruism — the unauthorized distribution of disaster aid — those working the front lines simple saw as malama kekahi i kekahi, Hawaiian for “taking care of each other.”
Headquarted at Maalaea Harbor, conservation nonprofit Pacific Whale Foundation and social enterprise PacWhale Eco-Adventures suspended educational ecotour operations and used its six remaining vessels (one was destroyed, in addition to the organization’s Lahaina Ocean Store) to deliver food, water, fuel, medication, baby supplies and camp gear to survivors stranded in West Maui.
Caitlin Carol, one of 22 PWF employees who lost her home in the Lahaina fire, refused to let grief paralyze her. Unloading crates at Maalaea Harbor helped temper the trauma of surviving hours in Lahaina Harbor with a kupuna neighbor and the image of the elderly man who escaped with them slumped in the water only a few feet away.
Although not directly impacted by the Lahaina wildfire, Daimus Kanahele was determined to contribute what he could. “We make clothing, so the first thing we did was fill up our truck with blank T-shirts from our warehouse to donate to the closest shelter,” said the owner of Manafacture print shop in Wailuku and founder of Na Koa Brand island apparel. “But we knew we had to do more. Our mantra through this has been, Do what you know.’ We know apparel, and we know design.”
The stars aligned when Lahaina Restoration Foundation approached Kanahele to collaborate on a Lahaina Strong clothing line focusing on the beloved banyan tree. “Lahaina’s roots run deep with history and culture, and I wanted to highlight that through the art,” he explained, adding that incorporating symbols of the people of Lahaina into the image illustrates working together as one to preserve and rebuild. Featuring Kanahele’s stylized banyan tree, each T-shirt is hand-printed with proceeds donated to Lahaina restoration efforts.
To assist displaced families struggling to rebuild with little ones underfoot, IMUA Family Services partnered with The Nanny Connection and Maui Dive Shops to provide free daycare in West Maui until school began in the fall. More than 50 children are dropped off on the first day. The nonprofit committed to island keiki also partnered with JAKKS Pacific toy company on the mainland to open the “Play IMUA” pop-up store at Maalaea Harbor Shops where children could “shop” for free toys, books, Halloween costumes and more until supplies ran out. By providing a safe space for impacted children and their families to enjoy toys and activities, IMUA and JAKKS Pacific helped encourage healing.
LAULIMA SOUTH MAUI
Although Maui Brewing Company’s West Maui locations still stand, the Kīhei-based beverage company immediately began collecting monetary donations and household supplies at its South Maui store. In a matter of weeks, the island brewery developed Kokua (to help, care) Beer to fund ongoing recovery efforts with donated sales profits.
At Kīhei Boat Landing, ocean-tour company Blue Water Rafting worked with local captains and truck drivers to organize donation deliveries from South Maui to affected areas on the west side. Farther north, Sugar Beach Events pivoted from upscale
wedding parties to food prep and delivery for those in need.
Family-owned and -operated commercial food distribution company Eskimo Candy, Inc., which supplies fresh seafood and meats to resorts and restaurants, quickly regrouped in the days following to aid. CEO Jeffry Hansen and sons Joshua and Jordan delivered shrimp, mahi-mahi, angus burgers, ground beef, chicken and more to West Maui. Although much was pulled from their Kīhei inventory, Hansen generously purchased pallets of water, Gatorade, diapers and other necessities to the tune of more than $10,000 a day — a considerable financial sacrifice for any island business — and orchestrated donations of paper products from Crackin’ Coffee and ice from Kīhei Ice. In addition, Eskimo Candy gifted every on-island fire station a case each of Wagyu ribeye steaks and baby back pork ribs.
Azeka Shopping Center and Nalu’s South Shore Grill in Kīhei hosted the Lahaina Keiki Relief Concert. Among the musicians donating their time and kanikapila (impromptu jam session) skills were Anthony Pfluke, Kawika Ortiz, Brother Noland and Sista Robi Kahakalau. Organizer Ron Panzo of Nalu’s had “no words” to describe the aloha, the love — the laulima — coming from so many.
Grand Wailea, A Waldorf Astoria Resort contributed a full emergency kitchen in coordination with World Central Kitchen and other hotels to provide thousands of hot meals and sponsored the Wiwoole Maui Benefit Concert for the Maui Strong Fund. And neighboring Four Seasons Maui, which donated pallets of linens, bedding, diapers, toiletries and more to Maui shelters, later housed emergency personnel, first responders and displaced employees and their families. The resort also established the Four Seasons Golden Rule Relief Fund to support employees in need directly, with the remaining funds distributed to the Hawaii Community Foundation’s Maui Strong Fund, and the Maui Strong offer encouraging guests to dedicate a portion of their stay (up to $200 per night) to the Maui Strong Fund.
Kīhei resident Kevin Watkins, who owns Maui Sustainable Solutions, initiated his own fundraising drive to place clean water stations in areas where drinking water is, was, or at risk of contamination due to damaged infrastructure from the wildfires.
Three weeks and counting, nearly 100 people paddled out from Kīheis Cove Park in memory of Lahaina lives lost. This marked the first of two organized paddle outs that took place on the one-month anniversary of the tragic fires: a full day of healing at Kalama Park that lasted until sunset and the emotional paddle out, boat lineup, flower drop and convoy at Ukumehame Beach Park, south of Olowalu.
LAULIMA EAST MAUI
On the far side of the island, where the wildfire smoke didn’t reach, Hana neighborhoods and businesses collected donations, and volunteers delivered them by the truckload to support early relief efforts spearheaded by Kaanapali’s Kanamu Baninbin. Hana Tropicals, a flower farm and moringa orchard specializing in Hawaiian arrangements, harvested as much as could be arranged to sell at the Hana Farmers Market. All proceeds were donated to Maui wildfire recovery efforts.
Six days after the Maui wildfires, Hana School’s 6th- and 8th-grade students in Kumu Pi’ilani Lua’s Hawaiian Studies classes created artwork inspired by love for impacted Maui keiki. Guided by Kumu Pi’ilani and international artist Blessing Hancock, the series sends a message of support from the children of Hana to the children of Lahaina.
The Hana Arts community art project, now known as Healing Rainbow Waves, is on display at the Hana School campus.
Hana Farmers Market was the site of the 2023 Levitt AMP Hana Music Series’ Concerts with a Cause fundraiser in late August with headliner Paula Fuga. Presented by Hana Arts with several major sponsors, the event raised over $40,000 to support Common Ground Collective and community-based agriculture to help feed displaced and food-insecure families.
LAULIMA NORTH SHORE
Surrounded by properties in Spreckelsville, Maui Country Club wasted no time reaching out to club members and staff to organize daily donation drives and supply runs via boats, airplanes and trucks to evacuation shelters. A large meeting room was converted into a shelter for the club’s displaced families and employees impacted by the Lahaina and Kula fires. As the shelters emptied, MCC focused on arranging housing for visiting chefs volunteering with Operation BBQ Relief, which provided more than 30,000 meals.
Paia’s hip, artsy surf community flexed its humanitarian muscles with myriad businesses, organizations and individuals stepping up. Youth With a Calling, part of the nonprofit Youth with a Mission Maui, volunteered its one boat to deliver food and supplies to West Maui and assisted in damaged property recovery and retrieval in collaboration with insurance giant Allstate’s Catastrophe Team. Paia Fish Market, which lost its Front Street Lahaina location in the fire, matched donations up to $20,000 to support island-wide relief efforts. And the Boba Bar Paia + Anthony’s Coffee kept first responders and emergency personnel hydrated and fed with free water, coffee, breakfast, lunch, snacks and more.
Owner of Deep Relief Peak Performance Athletic Training Center in Haikū, Samantha Campbell donated her specialized skills with offers of free injury evaluations for first responders and complimentary children’s classes for Maui keiki affected by the fires. And a mobile unit established by Haikū’s Pacific Birth Collective provided free essential care for displaced and impacted pregnant, birthing and postpartum families.
LAULIMA UP COUNTRY
Even as the Olinda fire spread to Upper Kula, igniting blazes that consumed 19 homes and more than 200 acres, Upcountry residents and businesses joined forces to help friends and neighbors around the island. The first Upcountry evacuation orders were issued early Tuesday morning just before dawn, 12 hours before Lāhainā burned. Evacuees were housed in Pukalani’s Mayor Hannibal Tavares Community Center.
On Crater Road, Kula resident Matson Kelly was clearing fire-fueling brush from an empty lot next door when neighbors noticed and voluntarily joined in the effort.
With hotspots still flaring up in gulches and grasslands, a grassroots community group formed on the social app Next Door seeking volunteers and heavy equipment to remove vegetation and other wildfire incendiaries from vulnerable Kula neighborhoods.
“Neighbors are taking care of neighbors one Toyota Tacoma at a time,” said recovery organizer Kyle Ellison, whose family lost their Upcountry home to the fires.
The spirit of laulima is so firmly anchored in volcanic rock that even a surfer from Kīhei, Gabriel Morgan, trekked up the mountain to assist Upcountry homeowners in cleaning up properties destroyed by fire.
Help also came from the pineapple fields of Hali‘imaile. Maui Gold Pineapple immediately suspended tours and instead delivered cut pineapple by boat to impacted areas. The iconic Upcountry pineapple farm also initiated the “Pineapple Pledge” — a commitment to support aid organizations one purchased pineapple at a time through donated profits. And in nearby Makawao, the organic, regenerative family farm Simple Roots donated poundfuls of freshly harvested chicken originally earmarked for West Maui restaurants. A desired protein source, the chicken meat fed first responders, emergency workers and displaced families in West Maui.
THE ROOTS OF HOPE
The stories of laulima in the hours, days and weeks following the Maui wildfires held us together when we felt broken and carried us when our legs were weak. It is the island way, to spread aloha and care for others, whether strangers, ohana or a 150-year-old tree.
In what has become a symbol of hope and regeneration, Lahaina’s iconic banyan tree somehow still stands — singed and scorched — in the torched courthouse square named in its honor. Although its thousands of leaves were severely burned, the massive tree’s 40-plus trunks fared better than originally feared. A hui comprising arborists, landscapers and concerned volunteers formed right after the fire to care for the tree in the days that followed. Water tankers doused the tree every few hours and hui members bathed the banyan in love and light.
Arborist Steve Nimz, a first responder and unofficial hui leader, expressed early optimism after discovering living tissue under the bark of the tree’s lower trunks and new life in the roots. To stimulate growth and nourish the base, the team has been aerating and treating the soil with a specialized compost mixture.
In the months since, new sprouts have emerged on the mauka (mountain) side of the banyan and there is growth high in the canopy. With a third of the beloved tree already showing strong recovery, the island holds hope for its reawakening.
The Front Street square itself, once the vibrant hub of Lahaina Town, remains unrecognizable. The courthouse, little more than a burned-out shell. Steps away, a placard that survived still reads “Lahaina’s Banyan Tree — A Gathering Place.”
Whether these words belong to the past or the future remains to be seen. But when many hands work together, miracles come true.
Collected from news and media reports, personal experiences and word of mouth, these stories represent a fraction of the laulima that holds us close and keeps us #MauiStrong.
MANY HANDS HOLOHOLONA
Those who escaped the Lahaina fire with their very lives say it came on like a bullet train — fast, furious and white-hot. Some were able to grab their animals (holoholona in Hawaiian); others were not so lucky.
“I cried every day, feeling so guilty that I couldn’t just break down the door and save them,” one survivor said of her two cats, Finn and Bali. “We just keep picturing their faces, hoping beyond hope that they somehow made it.”
Not knowing the fate of their beloved pets was a shared lament heard in Maui evacuation shelters in the days following, stretching into weeks as displaced residents were moved to temporary housing and shelters dismantled. It would be more than two and a half weeks before authorized animal-rescue personnel were allowed in the burn zone where four-legged survivors were forced to fend for themselves for 18 long days.
It would take many hands, much laulima, to help West Maui’s non-human fire victims. Maui County’s humane enforcement arm, Maui Humane Society (MHS) guided local and off-island efforts to attend to as many displaced, injured and deceased animals as possible.
The quickly expanding animal-welfare hui included island-based Hawaii Animal Rescue Foundation (HARF), Honi Honi Cats Maui, Valley Isle Animal Rescue, Kitty Charm Farm, plus hundreds of volunteers and myriad mainland and Neighbor Island partners. As rescuers waited to access West Maui, they took preparative action. To ensure adequate space for the anticipated influx of animals in need, hundreds of dogs and cats were transferred from Maui animal-care facilities to rescue organizations in Oregon, Washington, California and on Oahu.
Many hands were hard at work across the island. HARF provided food, shelter and medical care for hundreds of evacuated dogs, cats and farm animals and offered to board displaced pets free of charge at its Waihee facility.
Makawao Veterinary Clinic set up the Maui Fire Animal Relief Fund to assist impacted animals and their guardians. And Leilani Farm Sanctuary in Haikū partnered with MHS to arrange temporary shelter for horses, cows, goats and other large animals impacted by the Lahaina and Upcountry fires.
Emergency provisions collected through donation requests were delivered to pet-friendly shelter. Rehomed families, foster volunteers and animal rescue groups in need of food, water, bedding, toys, etc. could pick up supplies for free at MHS’s Puunene campus and participating businesses and community centers around the island. Working with Lahaina Veterinary Clinic, Kīhei Veterinary Clinic, West Maui Animal Clinic and visiting veterinarians, MHS offered free clinics daily at the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort & Spa in Kaanapali for the first month, continuing on a weekly basis thereafter.
Once access to the burn zone was granted, MHS enforcement officers, Animal Search and Rescue (ASAR)/Animal Incident Management (AIM) and Greater Good Charities trapping teams worked around the clock responding to lost-animal calls, searching abandoned structures, trapping injured or struggling animals as possible, leaving food and water for displaced animals yet to be trapped, and collecting remains to provide closure for pet parents.
To facilitate reuniting found animals with their people, dedicated groups popped up on Facebook and other socials to support MHS’s official database of missing animals. More than 400 Lahaina animals, mostly cats and dogs, have been brought to MHS as of mid-October. Forty-plus of those included rabbits, guinea pigs, birds, large tortoises, one chinchilla and a pig. MHS has over 200 strays in its care and has successfully reunited more than 100 fortunate holoholona with their ohana.
And that tormented evacuee who had to leave her two cats? Maui Humane Society reunited her with Finn, who was located weeks later relatively unscathed. She continues to have faith that Bali will be found alive, too. And nothing is more powerful than faith, except perhaps laulima.
